


find myself a map again

by neutrophilic



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-28 22:53:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20433797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neutrophilic/pseuds/neutrophilic
Summary: Before the Quarter Quell, Haymitch lets Johanna in on District 13's plan.





	find myself a map again

**Author's Note:**

> Title's from Circles by Coda Chroma. Some content notes at the end for people that might want them. I wrote this a while ago and finally decided to post it here, because why not?

Johanna knew that she probably only had a few days left to live and, instead of trying to squeeze out any last drops of joy left to her, she was attempting to find something to watch on tv and failing. Miserably. Almost every channel was dedicated to covering the Quarter Quell, mostly speculating on tonight’s interviews. The few exceptions were stuffed full of soppy retrospectives on Katniss and Peeta’s true love. It was almost enough to make her lose her breakfast. But Johanna was a victor for a reason, so she picked up another pastry stuffed with sweet cheese and jam and began to type in numbers at random on the remote.

Ugh, she landed on a program that was dissecting Peeta’s interview from the previous games, full of dramatic zoom-ins on Katniss’s unconvincing reaction. The worst of all possible options.

“Am I interrupting something?” Haymitch said, without bothering to knock or make sound while walking like a decent person would.

Johanna threw the remote at him. Surprisingly, he caught it.

“I’m busy preparing for my interview,” Johanna said. “Trying to get a lock on my competition.”

“I thought you wanted them for allies,” Haymitch said and turned the tv off.

“I want Katniss for an ally,” Johanna corrected. “Peeta just seems like dead weight.”

“Too bad they’re a package deal then,” Haymitch said. He wandered over to the breakfast buffet and selected a sausage that he began to eat with his fingers and a great deal of lip smacking.

Johanna clenched her fists and reminded herself that they were under surveillance. That even if Haymitch wanted to be helpful, he couldn’t. But the Quarter Quell had been hanging over her for months and the only reassurance she’d gotten was one lousy note slipped into her mailbox that said “Plan in motion. Await further instructions.” Johanna had then checked the tree where District 13’s people normally left her information as often as she’d dared. Only to learn that she’d dared too frequently, since she’d then received the charming note, “Tree compromised. Await further instructions.”

Haymitch was on his second sausage when Johanna cracked. “I’ll ally with him too, if that’s what it takes to get someone who can shoot like that on my team.” 

Johanna wasn’t an idiot, whatever plan the rebels were cooking up would obviously center around Katniss. If Johanna was going to die, if she was going to have to face the arena again, she wouldn’t let her death be meaningless.

Haymitch pulled a flask from his unseasonably warm jacket and tipped a good bit down his throat. He was still the most sober Johanna had ever seen him. It made her nervous.

“How do you feel about taking a walk?” Haymitch asked. “I’ll even let you talk down to me about trees.”

Her pulse picked up. He’d said that exact thing to her once before, when she was sixteen, newly alone in the world, and it all her fault. Her family was dead, and, as she had seen it, there was therefore no reason why she should get on the train to go to the capital for the games. Blight could mentor both of the tributes from 7 for all she cared. She had thought that there was no reason why she should do anything, other than lounge around dry-eyed in all of her fanciest dresses in her too large house and wait for President Snow to kill her. But then Haymitch had stumbled into her house, dodged both of her axes, and asked her that question.

“Why are you here?” she had asked, completely confused. She had barely known him, they had only talked twice since her victory, and both times he was so drunk that he couldn't stand up straight. Johanna couldn't imagine a reason why he'd suddenly be in her district, in her house, without any warning. Her dress that day had been her absolute favorite, all silver and shimmery and with a slit that went up to the very top of her thigh. The way he’d sized her up made her feel like a girl playing dress up in her mother’s clothes.

“Because, sweetheart, I’m the example,” he’d said. “I don’t have anyone left either, and I still get on that fucking train and mentor all of those doomed kids every year. Snow sent me to explain to you exactly why you are going to be just like me.”

And when Johanna had followed him far enough into the woods, he’d told her instead all about District 13 and a network of rebels and the place that Victors could have in the whole enterprise.

“Are there codenames and secret passwords I should know?” Johanna had asked, earnestly.

He’d laughed and laughed. “You’ve been watching too many bad Capitol movies."

Back then, back home, Johanna had blushed, embarrassed and angry and cold in her thin dress.

Remembering it now in the artificial warmth of the capitol, flakes of pastry stuck to her fingers, she felt an echo of her earlier anger all over again.

"Yes," she said. "I'll go anywhere as long as it's out of this building."

Haymitch tapped his index finger against his flask. "Have you heard of Dewdrop Park?"

Johanna didn't bother to reply. She'd been the one to tell him about the dilapidated and unfashionable park on the outskirts of the Capitol. It had trees, real trees, not weird mutated abominations with pink trunks and heart-shaped leaves.

She drove them there in silence. Haymitch driving, even a mostly sober Haymitch driving, wasn't even under consideration. She doubted that he'd bothered to learn: most Victors didn't. But it had been one of the few ways that she'd been able to pretend to be free while trapped in the Capitol. Johanna had been surprised that she'd been allowed to leave the building, let alone take her own automobile, but no Peacekeepers materialized to insist she go back. She'd been so good about showing up for her own murder that they probably didn't think they needed to bother to confine her further.

Haymitch still didn't talk when they'd made it to the park, ambling slowly along the path. She was just about to die of frustration or say something, anything, when Haymitch stopped in front of a pine tree and squinted up at it.

"What's this called?" he asked.

"A Ponderosa Pine," she said, without thinking about it very hard.

He frowned and then walked up close to the trunk and rested his hand on it. "I think it's a spruce. Look at the bark."

Johanna was about to launch into a rant that defined exactly how wrong and stupid he was to think that that tree could be anything other than a Ponderosa Pine, let alone a spruce, and how dare he think that he was any kind of expert on trees when they didn't even have those kinds of pine back in District 12, when she noticed his raised eyebrows. "Maybe you're right," she said, sweetly, moving closer, "let me see."

"There aren't any cameras covering this area and nobody from the Capitol bothers to come here," Haymitch said, quietly. "I don't know if you remember, you were almost as drunk as me, but two Games ago, one of the tributes mistook a pine tree for a spruce. You spent about twenty minutes explaining at great volume how to tell them apart. You were probably gearing up to give me that all over, and let me tell you, once was more than enough. Anyways, Beetee's found a way to feed that audio into the Capitol's system so we can talk."

"It's a stupid mistake," Johanna said.

"He was from 8."

"He should have known better than to try to ID trees then," Johanna insisted. It wasn't the time, but somehow, after being desperate to know what was going to happen for months, now that the moment had finally arrived, she didn't know how to face it. Especially not if the plan required a mostly sober Haymitch to deliver it.

"Ok," Haymitch said, even quieter. "What did they tell you?"

"Nothing."

He leaned in and whispered directly in her ear. "District 13 thinks they can break through the force field around the arena."

If Johanna hadn't lost the ability to cry two kills before her Games were over, she would have sobbed from relief. She might live through this. Probably not, but still, there was suddenly more of a chance than before.

"They can't do it on the first day," Haymitch continued. "So you've got to stay alive until they're ready. I don't know when, they haven't told me, but there's going to actually be a code this time."

"There's been plenty of codes," Johanna said, wetly.

"This one's going to be necessary for something other than your sense of drama." Haymitch released her and put his hand back on the tree. "Get Peeta to tell you about what breads come from the different districts if you don't already know it. The type of bread I send them will note the day and the amount will mark the hour of the rescue."

"Did Katniss decide to take me on as an ally, or am I supposed to lurk around in the shadows, spying on the lovebirds?"

He snorted. "She will. She's not completely thick."

"Am I supposed to do something else besides try not to die and wait around for rescue?"

"How much have you heard about the uprisings?" Haymitch said, not meeting her eyes.

"I know that it's a mess in District 4, Finnick told me, and I haven't been able to get most of the stuff I ordered from District 8, so I'm assuming 8's joined in too. The paper factory in District 7's involved in a slowdown, but, of course, nobody's told me anything about it."

“District 3's in on it too," he said. "How long do you think those rebellions will last if Katniss dies in the arena?"

"I know I'm expandable," Johanna said, a little too loudly. "You don't have to convince me. I know that she's managed more with those berries in ten seconds than any of us have done in decades. What do they want me to do? Protect her with my life? Is that it?"

"If necessary." He scrambled at his jacket and retrieved his flask again, but didn't drink from it.

"Then why all the cloak and dagger stuff?" Johanna asked. "You could have told me over breakfast instead of dragging me all the way out here."

"You still watch all that Capitol shit? I thought you gave that up years ago. I would have given you a lot more crap about it on the ride over, if I'd known."

"I tell you exactly as much as you tell me," Johanna said.

"Fair," he said, saluting her with his flask. "No, you're more critical to the plan than just acting as a meat shield. I can't tell Katniss or Peeta anything useful, and 13 will need help from inside the arena to bust you out. Both Wiress and Beetee can do it, but—“

"But Volts is better than Nuts," Johanna cut in.

"I wouldn't have put it like that."

Johanna rolled her eyes. "So it goes, Katniss, Volts, Nuts, then me, in order of who I should try to keep alive."

"You need to keep Peeta alive too. Good luck getting Katniss to do anything with you if he dies, and District 13 thinks he's a good backup if Katniss doesn't make it."

"Anything else?"

"If you can manage a way to remove their trackers when it's close to the time, especially Katniss's, then that would also help."

Johanna nodded solemnly. "And I bet that you also want me to figure out a way to win Katniss over. It's great that you think so highly of my abilities, but I'm not a miracle worker."

Haymitch grinned. "Katniss was already won over by Beetee and Wiress, if you keep them alive and deliver them to her, she'll owe you enough to take you in."

"How'd you manage that?" She was reluctantly impressed. She'd barely talked to Katniss, but it was enough to tell that she was stubborn right down to her roots

"Because I, unlike you, am a miracle worker." Then, he finally stopped fondling the tree and said in a more normal volume. "You've convinced me, Johanna, it's definitely whatever kind of pine you said."

"Ponderosa Pine," Johanna said, the words coming out unbidden.

"Sure," Haymitch said, "that. Well that's been enough nature for me, let's go back to the training center."

Reluctantly, Johanna followed him to her car and made her way back. This time, Haymitch kept up a running commentary about how he didn't get why so many people had strong opinions about wine, since the only thing that mattered was how many glasses it'd take to get drunk. Johanna gripped the wheel and tuned him out. She might live. She might really live through this. All she needed was a good plan.

When they pulled into the garage, Johanna asked Haymitch the only question she still had left. "Is Finnick in the alliance?"

"I don't know," he said. "I haven't asked him yet."

"What?"

Haymitch shrugged. "I thought he'd be a harder sell. Wanna help me talk him into it? Or would you rather rot your brains out with trashy television?" He gave her another one of his significant looks.

Obviously Finnick would say yes, with or without her tagging along. But Johanna agreed anyways.

"Good," Haymitch said, shrugging off his jacket and revealing a massive golden bangle. "My district escort got me this bracelet, and I hope Finnick's luck is good enough that he can win it off me in poker."

He fumbled with the handle and leaned against the door, so he fell onto the ground when he opened it. "Oops!" he called out, slurring his words significantly more than he'd been just seconds before, sounding more like himself. "Help me up?"

Johanna sighed and walked over slowly, like she did every time Haymitch got too drunk and needed help moving around. When she hauled him up, he latched onto her arm and leaned into her side. 

"I hope you make it out of the arena alive," he whispered into her ear.

Me too, she thought, and I hope you make it from the Capitol to District 13. 

Later, it took four days of torture for her to relearn how to cry. But no matter what they did to her—the shocks, Peeta’s screams, killing her fellow victors from 7 in front of her—she never gave up Haymitch’s name. She never gave up any of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Very brief, non-graphic references references to canonical torture


End file.
